ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2012
Mechanics of peristaltic locomotion and role of anchoring.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unsegmented marine annelids as biomechanical models for soft robotics.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Robotic ray driven by periodic ring snapping.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2025Article
- Characterization of the Chaetae Autofluorescence in the Earthworm Eisenia foetida and their Role in Locomotion.Journal of fluorescence · 2025Article
- Competition between elasticity and adhesion in caterpillar locomotion.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Article
- Self-propulsion via slipping: Frictional swimming in multilegged locomotors.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Imaging dynamic three-dimensional traction stresses.Science advances · 2022Article
- Planarian nociception: Lessons from a scrunching flatworm.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2022Review
- Yoshimura-origami Based Earthworm-like Robot With 3-dimensional Locomotion Capability.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2021Article
- Do bumblebees have signatures? Demonstrating the existence of a speed-curvature power law in Bombus terrestris locomotion patterns.PloS one · 2020Article
- Burrowing dynamics of aquatic worms in soft sediments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Quantifying the mechanics of locomotion of the schistosome pathogen with respect to changes in its physical environment.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2019Article
- Article
- The Optimal Locomotion of a Self-Propelled Worm Actuated by Two Square Waves.Micromachines · 2017Article
- Serpentine locomotion through elastic energy release.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2017Article
- Soft Modular Robotic Cubes: Toward Replicating Morphogenetic Movements of the Embryo.PloS one · 2017Article
- Periodic traction in migrating large amoeba of Physarum polycephalum.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2015Article
- Coordination of contractility, adhesion and flow in migrating Physarum amoebae.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2015Article
- Common mechanics of mode switching in locomotion of limbless and legged animals.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2014Article
- Crawling motility through the analysis of model locomotors: two case studies.The European physical journal. E, Soft matter · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Limbless crawling is a fundamental form of biological locomotion adopted by a wide variety of species, including the amoeba, earthworm and snake. An interesting question from a biomechanics perspective is how limbless crawlers control their flexible bodies in order to realize directional migration. In this paper, we discuss the simple but instructive problem of peristalsis-like locomotion driven by elongation-contraction waves that propagate along the body axis, a process frequently observed in slender species such as the earthworm. We show that the basic equation describing this type of locomotion is a linear, one-dimensional diffusion equation with a time-space-dependent diffusion coefficient and a source term, both of which express the biological action that drives the locomotion. A perturbation analysis of the equation reveals that adequate control of friction with the substrate on which locomotion occurs is indispensable in order to translate the internal motion (propagation of the elongation-contraction wave) into directional migration. Both the locomotion speed and its direction (relative to the wave propagation) can be changed by the control of friction. The biological relevance of this mechanism is discussed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.